Bangor alternative school proposal draws crowd

A month ago, Patricia Mulroy went public with her idea to start an alternative elementary school at Kirkridge.

CHRISTINA TATU

A month ago, Patricia Mulroy went public with her idea to start an alternative elementary school at Kirkridge.

Now it's time to see if that idea is ready to fly, she told 25 residents who gathered at the Bangor center Sunday.

The idea is to develop a small private school based on self-driven education where students cast votes on classroom rules along with their teachers, and develop their own curriculums based on subjects that interest them.

With more than 30 years working in public education, Mulroy admits the Kirkridge School would be quite different from what most people are used to.

Its educational structure would be based on other alternative schools such as The Circle School in Harrisburg, Alpine Valley School in Wheat Ridge, Colo., and Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, Mass.

Such schools refer to their educational model as a form of scaled-down democracy.

Democratic education cultivates originality, leadership and an empowering sense of creative control in one's life, Mulroy said. Students are considered fully empowered citizens and active creators of their lives.

In the democratic model of education, children meet every day for "judicial committee," during which time they discuss the school rules and whether to adopt new ones or amend existing ones.

Everyone in the school, from 4-year-old students to the teachers, gets a vote.

Students who break rules must accept a punishment decided on by the committee, or plead not guilty.

Teachers have the resources to provide the same type of curriculum offered at a public school, but the individual student is the one who sets the pace of the lessons and chooses what they are interested in learning.

"Stroudsburg could really use something like this," said Don Slepian of East Stroudsburg, who attended Sunday's meeting with his wife, Jan Julia.

"The difficulty is children are raised without a sense of responsibility today. People try to raise their children on television programs and video games, but a school of this type is much more demanding," he said.

The only requirements for admission would be that a student wants to be there and is able to self-regulate.

Students would have to show they are putting effort into their education, Mulroy said.

East Stroudsburg resident Liz Manhart is interested in this type of education for her 6-year-old daughter, whom she homeschools.

"I think I've seen kids' love of learning die in the public school model," Manhart said.

Mulroy met with the Pennsylvania Department of Education earlier this month to begin the application process to open the school.

There's still a lot of work to be done, she said.

Volunteers will be responsible for investigating the finance and legal aspects, the fundraising, working with the Mount Bethel Zoning Officer to set up the school at the Kirkridge Retreat Center, the technology and marketing aspects and school resource acquisition.

Mulroy hopes to welcome a class of between 15 and 25 students in September.

Although there will be no set grade levels, the school would likely cater to students from kindergarten through eighth grade, with tuition based on a sliding scale depending on the family's income.

Tuition would likely range from $5,000 to $9,000 for the academic year, she said.

"One of the reasons we want to do this is because we believe innately that children are curious, and that curiosity drives their motivation," she said. "Hopefully by starting a small school we can open the eyes of other local educators."